Synth/World Hybrid (MP3)

“Sweetened Air,” by Specta Ciera, is an appropriate title for a piece that appears to mix field recordings and synthesized sound in near equal amounts. One can hear the artificial tonal material as an additive to the raw, everyday sounds. Glistening, shimmering tones mix in with the rattle and whir of what seem to be passing cars and the light rustle of life. One can consider the “artificial” material just that, an artificial sweetener, as it were — or perhaps as something else entirely: the less natural-sounding material could be field recordings of a more fantastic sort, not immediately identifiable, and thus all the more evocative.

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Current Activities

• May 13, 2015: Last spring-semester class meeting of the 15-week course that I teach on the role of sound in the media landscape at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I'll next teach it in spring 2016.
• December 13, 2015: The 19th anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• Ongoing: The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: soundcloud.com.
• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury, is now in its second printing. It can be purchased at amazon.com, among other places.